


extraordinary is in the eye of the beholder

by shiiki



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-23
Updated: 2008-04-23
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9279557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiiki/pseuds/shiiki
Summary: The world has a lot to teach Luna, and she's happy to learn.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [](http://rebbe.livejournal.com/profile)[rebbe](http://rebbe.livejournal.com/) in [](http://luna-exchange.livejournal.com/profile)[luna_exchange](http://luna-exchange.livejournal.com/), who wanted a fic of Luna traveling the world. 
> 
> Much thanks to [](http://andy2301.livejournal.com/profile)[andy2301](http://andy2301.livejournal.com/), [](http://latine.livejournal.com/profile)[latine](http://latine.livejournal.com/), and [](http://malvernrob.livejournal.com/profile)[malvernrob](http://malvernrob.livejournal.com/) for research help and [](http://inksplotched.livejournal.com/profile)[inksplotched](http://inksplotched.livejournal.com/) for the beta!

_The world is a place where the extraordinary can sit beside the ordinary with the thinnest of boundaries. --Jodi Picoult_

~*~*~

prologue

Luna Lovegood is twenty-three years old when she decides that she needs to leave England.

She's been abroad before, of course; when she was younger her father took her searching for Snorkacks in Sweden and Blibbering Humdingers in Belgium. But if she's learnt one thing from studying the migration pattern of Scottish Nargles over the past three years, it is that a brief sojourn in the homeland of a creature is not enough to truly understand. And so she packs her bags and prepares to leave.

'But what are you planning to study?' ask her friends, who are bemused when she tells them she doesn't have a particular creature in mind. Luna tries to explain that the point of discovery is not knowing what you'll find when you start out, but none of them can quite understand that. To them, a journey without a destination is nothing short of madness.

She starts by setting herself a circular trail around Europe. The Snorkacks are in summer hibernation when she reaches Sweden, so she moves south, eventually settling down for a time among a colony of what she names Whippersnips in Croatia. These fantastic beasts spread their multi-coloured wings and migrate when autumn arrives, and as Luna sends them off, she feels an urge to follow, an itch to fly west into the sunset too.

And why shouldn't she? If the whims of the Whippersnips have taken root in her, why not let them take her on a new path of discovery?

~*~*~

migration

Whippersnips, it turns out, winter in the South of France. The destination, however, turns out to matter little when compared with the spectacular journey there. Passing through the luxurious green mountainsides of Italy, Luna is filled with an appreciation and wonder that surprises her. She takes out her sketchbook, which is full of drawings of Whippersnips, and tries to capture on a blank page the majesty of the mountains. Nothing she puts to paper can compare, however.

She should have known that. After all, she's drawn hundreds of creatures, and she knows that artistic depictions always pale in comparison to the actual living thing. And therein lies the error in her thinking.

Luna thought she could draw the scenery as it was, and her picture is pretty, but it isn't _alive_. These mountains _are_ alive, reaching up to touch the dancing clouds. Now that her eyes have opened to it, Luna will never again be blind to the essence of life in nature.

She finds herself drawn less to the colourful, moving Whippersnips and more to the still and seemingly silent elements around her. The wind, the rocks, the clouds, the sun ... their voices are soft at first, but grow louder the more she becomes accustomed to listening.

_We have billions of faces, and there is always more of us for you to see,_ they tell her.

The Whippersnips are content to settle down in sunny Marseilles, but the call to keep going west is still strong in Luna.

~*~*~

europe

Estoril, on the coast of Portugal, is the furthest point west that Luna can get on the European continent, but she feels that it's not far enough. She stands at the coast, letting the warm, fine sand run through her bare feet. The cool waves of the ocean lap at her toes, inviting her forward.

_Come,_ it calls with every break of the surf. _There's still a lot more to see_.

In the evening, the sea breeze dies off and is replaced by an offshore gradient that blows her hair out towards the ocean and whispers in her ear of wonders awaiting her on the other side of the ocean. She watches the sun set yet again, this time over the Eastern coast of the Atlantic, basking in the beauty of its rays. Its warmth ignites something inside her, a longing to float up on the breeze and ride the air currents to a place where the sun is shining on. As the day slips into the cool of twilight, Luna thinks perhaps the world is calling to her: it's an invitation to a ball with a million dances, and she has an empty card to fill.

Night falls over the vast expanse of water, making it seem wider and grander than ever with the stars charting a course to far, far away. Luna imagines herself somewhere in the unknown and smiles at the thought. After all, didn't she want to fly as fancy dictated, not knowing what she'd find?

~*~*~

north america

The pounding of the water is like roaring thunder in her ears. It's alive, a beast with a powerful voice. The rush of it is fabulous -- no spell in the wizarding world could create anything to compare with this natural wonder.

And how simple, Luna marvels, as she stands listening to the whooshing that seems to fill her from within. Only water, falling over the face of a cliff. Yet it is beautiful, strong, energetic ... something _alive_. Luna reaches out her hand to feel it beat down on her palm.

The fine spray that tickles her skin causes her eyes to widen in surprise. She withdraws her hand and holds it before her, watching the beads of water drip off the tips of her fingers. Droplets tinier than her nails, falling from her fingers the same way they tumble over the cliffs. Many many little drops coming together to become the fantastic display that is the Niagara Falls.

The roar of the water seems to speak to her: _nature's miracles are but many small wonders ... each seemingly insignificant, but together, infinitesimally grand._ Luna can't help but agree. Her sharp eyes see how a beam of sunlight -- _insignificant on its own_ \-- catches on the misty vapour of the pouring falls and scatters radiantly into a startling array of colour.

When she closes her eyes, the brilliant rainbow fills the inside of her lids. Luna smiles and lets the rumbling of the water continue on both around and inside her.

~*~*~

south america

It's like stepping into an entirely different world. Moving through the bizarre arid plains of the Valle de la Luna, it's as though Luna has crossed some sort of threshold -- a portal to the past. For the fossilised skeletons of both plants and animals long dead lie here, as though held in place by an everlasting _Petrificus Totalus_ : ancient tree trunks that rise for miles into the skies; bones imprinted into the very rocks by the bucking of the earth as it shifted its continental plates over millions of years.

The idea that life seeps back into the ground fascinates Luna. She feels connected to this place and everything in it. The thought makes her want to lie down and be a part of it too, to let the beating of her heart join the rumbling of the earth below.

In the afternoon, the fierce zonda wind arrives from the south, bringing up a storm of dust. Luna can't _not_ be out in it, even though she has to wrap her arms around one of the enormous trunks for support. The raging southerly seems to calls up the ghosts of the past: the dinosaurs that once roamed among the foliage seem to prance in the clouds of sand swirling around her, alive again for the moment.

As night falls, the valley is bathed in the light of its namesake. Her dusty ghosts finish their romp and retreat. Luna finds herself looking westward again, into the shadows of the hulking Andes.

 

~*~*~

asia

Luna meant to end up in Japan: Land of the Rising Sun. At first she doesn't realise she hasn't; the signs are in an unfamiliar pictorial language and the alphabets below each drawing-word sit together in spellings which don't make sense either. It _could_ be Japanese.

When she arrives at the one great landmark that finally tells her otherwise, Luna knows she isn't where she intended to be. She apparently has much to learn about Muggle airplanes: Japan Airlines obviously doesn't only fly to Japan.

Another person, on finding themselves in China when they thought they were headed for Japan, would feel utterly lost and dismayed, but to Luna, it hardly matters. She is on a mission to explore, to discover, and she likes to think the mistake could be China's nod to her: perhaps this is what she is meant to see.

It is the Great Wall of China, and it was built by Muggles, Luna realises with admiration. There is a distinct lack of magical traces here, which is overwhelming at first -- the idea that not a single wand helped to levitate the rocks into place seems unbelievable. Luna's fingers trace stone and as she runs her hands over the rough, mossy surface, it tells her a story of the Chinese labourers who cemented piece by piece the massive wall that stretches for thousands of miles.

Magic could of course create something like this, but that would take away the miracle of the wall. This way is better.

~*~*~

australia

It is entirely fitting for a continent accessible only by crossing the ocean to be plentiful in ships and sailboats. As Luna stands on the cliffs around Sydney Harbour, watching a fleet of boats sail out towards the ocean, she thinks she would like to be adrift with only the open sea and sky around her.

She manages to find her way onto a quaint little keelboat; the old Muggle owner tells her he once sailed round the world single-handedly, though with his age now, his family barely condone his little expeditions along the southwest coast. Jack is a little surprised at how readily Luna accepts his offer to join him on a sail southward to Melbourne, but appreciates the company.

Lying on the deck under the stars, letting the gentle swaying of the waves and Jack's tales of ocean adventures lull her to sleep, Luna understands what it means to be at one with the sea.

It's not all calm weather, of course -- the black cloud comes upon them so suddenly that it takes Luna's breath away. The boat lurches as the waves turn fierce as flailing limbs in a glorious fit of temper. She earns Jack's admiration, however, when she braves it out on deck with him to raise the storm jib.

They reach Port Philip Bay far too soon. Jack laughs and says that once she gets the sea in her blood, she'll never get it out.

'That's good,' says Luna. 'I wouldn't want to lose it.'

~*~*~

antarctica

The cold is like nothing Luna has ever experienced before, setting her teeth to chattering constantly despite continuous heating charms, which the icy wind seems to negate as quickly as she casts them. It's like being stung by a colony of Morecaps: strange, savage beasts that set upon you in packs, biting at your skin with ferocious little teeth.

Before she embarked on her journey, Luna might have said that these could be Morecaps; even though they are known to inhabit Greenland, it's not like anyone has proven they _don't_ live in Antarctica. After spending months with nature's voice for company, she still believes the Morecaps could be somewhere else on this continent, but just right now, nature is showing her the ferocious face of its elements.

This world can be as hostile as a protective mother dragon; that in itself is another of its wonders.

It's as though she's penetrated a secret shed in nature's house, and it's shooing her back into the gardens she is meant to view. Before, she might have soldiered on to prove the existence of Morecaps on this ice shelf. Now, she understands that the mysteries of the southernmost continent are just meant to stay that way: undiscovered. Sometimes the discovery is in realising there are things not meant to be explored. So Luna feels no regret in being repulsed instead of invited. Although she hasn't even been here an hour, Luna is content to leave, and reactivates the Portkey back to Philip Island.

~*~*~

africa

The tourists nearby complain about the heat, but Luna appreciates warmth after she's experienced the bitter cold. As the tourists move off towards shade and shelter, Luna elects to stay among the pyramids. She wanders around the maze of great triangular structures, wondering whether being buried in a tomb this big changes anything about dying.

At the entrance to one of the tombs, she meets its guardian. The sphinx stretches, cat-like, at her approach and announces:

'There is but one path in and it lies beyond me,  
Two options have you, as you can see.  
To answer the riddle and thus move onwards,  
Or turn around and forget these words.  
But choose carefully, for you have but one try,  
Answer wrong and I'm afraid you will die.

'Here is your riddle: the answer is simple  
Your first hint is that it has just one syllable.  
It starts with the beginning of hearing  
And fills with the sound of realisation dawning  
The end, you'll find, is aptly spelt  
For in every one, that being has dwelt.  
With these clues, choose your answer smart:  
Where is the place that you keep your heart?'

The answer is on the tip of Luna's tongue ... and deeper inside, it tugs at her. She smiles vaguely at the sphinx and shakes her head.

'I think it's time for me to go ... _home_.' And although the sphinx moves aside at her last word to allow her passage, Luna turns around, a new destination in mind.

~*~*~

epilogue: home

When she started out, Luna expected that home would feel rather drab and very dull on her return. She is delighted to find that this is not the case. The trees around her are a little greener; the sky above a little bluer; the flowers in her garden bloom a little brighter; and the earth beneath her feet practically vibrates with its potential for life -- life, which is everywhere, even here in ordinary old Ottery St Catchpole.  
  
There is a little of all the places she's been to wherever she looks. She basks in the brilliance of a coastal sunset which appears in the soft rays that cast the Devonshire countryside in gold; sees the magnificence of a waterfall in the morning dew shining on her window; admires the grandeur of its arboreal ancestors in the little apple tree by the house; senses an air of everlastingness in the rocks by the banks of the village pond; discovers an ocean tempest peeking out of the light spring showers; shivers at the snap and bite in an overnight frost; feels the weighty presence of an Egyptian tomb in the stones guarding the dead in the graveyard where she leaves flowers for Mum.

Maybe all that she's experienced remains with her, recalled in vivid colour out of her memory at the slightest hint.

Or perhaps the extraordinary has always been here, and all the wonders of the world have simply opened her eyes to the enchantments in her very own back yard.

~*~*~

_Fin_  



End file.
